Abstract

COUTINHO, Maria Teresa Brandão. Apoio à família e formação parental. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 2004, vol.22, n.1, pp.55-64. ISSN 0870-8231.

Framed in the most up-to-date models of Early Intervention, the active involvement of parents in the process of intervention with their children is seen as an important way of maximising child development. Even though these models emphasise the need for close collaboration and levelling of relationships between parents and professionals (through the creation of partnerships), this will only actually happen if and when parents are given more information about issues related to the health, development and learning process of their child (so that certain types of information are not exclusive to professionals). We consider that this is extremely useful and important for parents, allowing them to feel more informed and, eventually, more competent in matters which are particularly relevant to them. Programmes of parent training are an excellent opportunity to increase and improve parents' level of knowledge and their parental educational competences, and they appear in several studies, usually associated with very positive results in terms of performance of parental functions. Therefore, we present a characterisation of a training programme aimed at parents of children with Down syndrome aged between 6 months and 5 years, undertaken in the Lisbon region.

Keywords : Parental training; early intervention; Down Syndrome.

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